the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must

Archive for October, 2006

“I don’t think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that’s what a state chooses to do so,” Bush said in an interview aired Tuesday on ABC. Bush acknowledged that his position put him at odds with the Republican platform, which opposes civil unions.

“For decades, activist judges have tried to redefine America by court order,” Bush said Monday. “Just this last week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and should be defended.”

King “I’ll say anything to anyone to avoid my party losing Congress” George. Shut the hell up, you theocratic jackass.

Riding into work this morning, listening to the local AM news on WSB, (turn it off before 8:30, or you get some nasty pus in your ear named Boortz…) and one of the stories they were “covering” was the rumor that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has a controlling interest in Smartmatic, a company making voting machines to be used in the upcoming election. The WSB guy scoffed, “just a big hoax” but vowed a followup on “how such a rumor got going”.

You can read a story on the tangled web of ownership that is Smartmatic here and decide for yourself if there is anything to the story.

But as important, ask yourself two things:

Why was the local radio host so quick to call it a hoax? Probably because either the concept of our precious democracy being open to fraud and gaming is so “It Can’t Happen Here” that they refuse to ponder the possibility, which is idiotic, or because they actually realize that the system is hosed, but don’t want to cop to it.

Secondly, why is it so difficult to determine who owns the companies that are making the machines on which our democracy rests? That, my friends, is idiotic. The people who set this system of electronic voting did so in a manner that isn’t verifiable, not transparent at all, and completely hackable. They did so on purpose.

Technology is helping citizens take democracy to the next step, with something called Google Bombing:

If things go as planned for liberal bloggers in the next few weeks, searching Google for “Jon Kyl,” the Republican senator from Arizona now running for re-election, will produce high among the returns a link to an April 13 article from The Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly.

Mr. Kyl “has spent his time in Washington kowtowing to the Bush administration and the radical right,” the article suggests, “very often to the detriment of Arizonans.”

Searching Google for “Peter King,” the Republican congressman from Long Island, would bring up a link to a Newsday article headlined “King Endorses Ethnic Profiling.”

Fifty or so other Republican candidates have also been made targets in a sophisticated “Google bombing” campaign intended to game the search engine’s ranking algorithms. By flooding the Web with references to the candidates and repeatedly cross-linking to specific articles and sites on the Web, it is possible to take advantage of Google’s formula and force those articles to the top of the list of search results.

What this does is take a small step toward equality in our national conversation about our political choices. Instead of big money pols running attack ads, or incumbents getting their greasy mugs on television at every chance spewing nonsense, this action uses the web- which is where large amounts of voters are getting their information- to show a more realistic picture of a candidate. Instead of puppies and shots of their family, you get reports such as this about whackadoo Marilyn Musgrave (R-COLO.)- who feels that “gay marriage is the most important issue we face today”.

The notion is simple. People click on these links long enough, they rise higher in Google rankings, until they are in the first few pages of hits when someone searches on a particular candidate. Ha. Instant democracy.

In Ohio, during the 2004 Presidential election, 153,237 ballots were simply thrown away — more than the Bush “victory” margin. In New Mexico the uncounted vote was five times the Bush alleged victory margin of 5,988. In Iowa, Bush’s triumph of 13,498 was overwhelmed by 36,811 votes rejected. The official number is bad enough — 1,855,827 ballots cast not counted, according to the federal government’s Elections Assistance Commission. But the feds are missing data from several cities and entire states too embarrassed to report the votes they failed to count.